Dreamy Weather

Although the weather is always a bit of a crap shot here in the Pacific NW, every once in awhile, you get lucky and hit on some absolutely ‘catalog’ perfect weather. Last weekend was just that while Theresa and I led another group from ANEW Outdoors/REI Adventures on the Olympic Wilderness Coast Adventure.

It’s rare on our coast not to have a marine layer move in during the night and persist through the morning. If you’re lucky it will burn off sometime before noon, but I’ve had it last all day. And adding insult to injury, you can often jump in your car, move inland a quarter mile and have bright warm sunshine. To have three nights and following mornings clear is such a rarity, but that’s exactly what we experienced on this outing.

Living in a rural neighborhood, I’d forgotten just how many stars are in the night sky, and while we where out at the coast we thrilled in spotting both shooting-stars and satellites. Venus was so bright and low on the horizon that she left a silvery carpet on the ocean. I tried counting the stars of the Milky Way but quickly realized the futility.

Our companions on this trip came from far and wide; one from New York, one all the way from Iran and of course some right here in our own backyard, but they all shared a great sense of humor, making our jobs much easier and that much more enjoyable.

One of the highlights was just after we had all retired to our tents. We had warned them of ‘thieving raccoons’, as the reader-board at the Park headquarters calls them, and collected their toiletries, snacks and anything else with a fragrance and placed them in our bear cans. Theresa and I had our rain-fly off the tent, still enjoying the star view, when, like a group of ‘bully boys’, four raccoons (Procyon lotor), raced through campsite. We watched as they, in what seemed a well rehearsed mission plan, broke up and each visited their assigned prospective tent. After the stealthily reconnaissance, they then regrouped in the center of the site, exchanged results, and raced down the line to the next camp. It was like watching a Special Forces group or Ninja’s.

Guess the reader-board isn’t exaggerating after all.